Letters to David Irving on
this Website

Unless
correspondents ask us not to, this Website will
post selected letters that it receives and invite
open debate.

Mike
K asks,
Thursday, November 29, 2007, what is the difference between
racism and patriotism.

Defining
racism

READING about these events
[Oxford
Union debate 2007], I'm
impressed at the strange use of the word "racism" and its
variations. It brings me back 2,300 years to Socrates
who often annoyed people when he concerned himself with the
definition of words. As everyone knows, it lead to
his execution.

Today Socrates' fatal interest is called "topical
agreement." It means simply that both parties in a
discussion should be talking about the same topic.

If I buy a car from somebody, we should be talking about
the same car. If I hire a man to paint my house, we must
agree as to what is to be painted. If I want only the
outside walls painted and he also paints the cellar, we have
a dispute about how much I owe him.

As an historian, do you ever recall that when these
people who advertise themselves loudly to be against
"racism" ever defined what they meant by racism or why they
considered others to be "racist?" I do keep up and I do not
recall propagandists defining terms to any significant
degree.

"Racist," for example, can mean anything from "mass
murderer" to "village idiot." It is an insulting term becuse
it literally orders us to avoid thinking about something; if
we do not wish to be accused of crimes. If they really love
"equality"; why would they forbid the rest of us to think
?